Tuesday 26 September 2006 20.22 EDT
First published on Tuesday 26 September 2006 20.22 EDT

The European court of human rights yesterday ordered Britain to pay damages to the MI6 double agent George Blake over legal proceedings aimed at stopping him earning royalties from his memoirs.

It said Britain should pay the former spy - who escaped from prison 40 years ago and fled to the USSR - €5,000 (£3,350) in damages and €2,000 in costs because its handling of the case took too long.

The British government launched a court case against Blake in 1991 to stop him receiving royalties from his autobiography, No Other Choice. It argued that he should not be allowed to make money by breaching his duty of confidentiality. The case went through the UK courts and the law lords ruled in the government's favour in 2000. The European court of human rights unanimously ruled yesterday that the case took too long to process.

"The court noted that the proceedings had lasted nine years and two months," it said. "There were periods of inactivity for which no satisfactory explanation has been given by the government. Taking into account the circumstances of the case, the court did not consider that the proceedings against the applicant were pursued with the diligence required."

Blake was sentenced at the Old Bailey in 1961 to 42 years in prison after admitting spying for the Soviet Union. He was a double agent for nine years, during which time he is thought to have betrayed the names of more than 40 British agents. Many of them disappeared.

His actions devastated British secret service operations in the Middle East. He is believed to have passed on the names of almost every British agent working in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut.

He escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1966 with the help of Michael Randle and Pat Pottle, two anti-nuclear campaigners who were jailed with him, and was smuggled out of the country. Blake, 83, now lives in Moscow.

After Randle and Pottle admitted their role in a book, they were tried at the Old Bailey. But they were acquitted after evidence was given that Special Branch had known about their role for years.

It was claimed the security services were embarrassed that peace campaigners organised the escape, rather than the KGB as the government had said.